


the way we were [or 4 moments in which FOB never grew up together]

by megyal



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-16
Updated: 2006-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal





	the way we were [or 4 moments in which FOB never grew up together]

_Patrick at 5 years old._

Patrick was currently experiencing what his father called a _helluva bad day_ ; if his hands were free, he would have pinched that little part of his nose right between the eyes, just like he always saw his dad do, and let out a long quiet stream of breath. As it was, he was pinned against a cool brick wall by a big sweaty kid at his new school, his kicks and rants ineffective, and he felt the sharp impotent slice of rage at basically everything in his world. Being a fairly organized little boy, he started to make a List of Who/What I Hate as the sweaty pig-faced kid went through his pockets with one hand:

1) His parents for not trying hard enough to stay together. Especially his dad. Because he took the guitar with him and Patrick had wanted to start learning the guitar.

2) This stupid school. If this was how school was, he didn't need it.

3) This smelly kid. He hated smelly people.

4) His big brother for not attending the same school as him

Patrick was considering adding on 5) The people next door to his mom's new house that had the collie that chased him yesterday evening and 6) The post-man who had laughed uproariously at his last name, when he heard a low voice come soothing right into his left ear. He and his attacker froze and turned their heads slowly to meet a wide pair of brown eyes.

"Kid," the person to whom those brown eyes belonged. "Hey. Is this person bothering you?"

Patrick was feeling a little upset at being referred to as a kid, but he was a little happier when his personal Terminator backed off from him quickly, mumbling something being _sorry_ and _I'll just go now, Pete_ , and Patrick decided to gather his dignity with his lunch-money off the ground. A pair of sun-browned hands descended as well, and Patrick pulled away warily, thinking that this older boy was would just take it all and go.

"Here," the boy called Pete said, straightening up. "Here, kid, take it. Isn't it yours?"

Patrick snatched at it and glared up at the bigger boy, who had dark hair that contradicted itself, and a red knapsack threatening to fall off his shoulder.

"My name is Patrick," he ground out ferociously, taking out all his anger on his unlikely hero. "That's my name, and stop calling me kid. I don't like it."

"Awwww." Pete said in amused mockery, disregarding Patrick's complete lack of gratitude. "Isn't he a sweet little lunchbox?" This was flung over his shoulder to another boy that Patrick hadn't noticed, standing quietly in the path with a closed expression on his face. "Andy, can I keep him?"

The look on Andy's face faded, replaced with a wry humour, and he rolled his eyes in response. He had his hand on a slim hip and Patrick saw that his fingers were busy tapping out a quick beat against his faded black t-shirt. Patrick pouted up at Pete, who still had a sheen of laughter in his eyes.

"Can we go now?" Andy's voice was older than he looked, and he tapped even faster at his hipbone.

"Yeah, sure. I'll see you around, Patrick. Andy, you _know_ I just love helping the underdog."

Patrick bristled at his back as Pete walked off with Andy. He'd have to ask his mom if an Under Dog was like a collie.

*

_Joe at 10 years old._

Joe liked Patrick. Sure, he was a little too intense sometimes, muttering under his breath about Motown as they walked past the park, but he was cool. He could play guitar, keyboard, and drums. He was what their music-teacher had referred to today as a _natural_. A natural _asshole_ , sometimes, and Patrick turned a sharp look to him as he sniggered underneath his breath.

"What are you laughing at?" Patrick demanded, and Joe was a little relieved when the soccer ball dinged Patrick in the head, because he could recognise the start of a Patrick-tantrum quite easily.

"Ow!" Patrick went down like the Deathstar, complete with shrieks and if Joe squinted, he could imagine Patrick's fair hair to be flames from a destroyed starship. "Fuck!" he spat, rolling onto his back, and Joe was impressed with Patrick's easy ability to curse in public. Joe was trying very hard to cultivate this admirable trait.

"You curse like a fucking sailor, Patrick Stump. Wait 'til I tell your mother," Pete said loudly, running up in the most awful purple shorts and a green t-shirt. Joe wondered if Pete put on his clothes inside his closet. With the light off. Pete's hair was a shocking shade of blonde, contrasting horrifically with his clothes, and not so badly with his skin, and he watched as Pete sat on Patrick's stomach and peered down at him.

"Get off me, you piece of shit!" Patrick screeched, and Pete settled on him even more. "Pete, you're heavy!"

"Calm down," Pete said mildly. "And I'm not heavy. Take it like a man."

"Andy!" Patrick yelled as Andy appeared beside Joe. "Get him off me!"

Andy opened his comic theatrically and smirked into the binding. Joe had learned that Andy wasn't really a man for the spoken word.

"Turn down the Patitude, man," Pete continued in that same mild voice, narrowing his eyes as if he was reading Patrick (much like those tons of books he liked to juggle at once) and Patrick's thrashing withered out. Pete seemed satisfied. "Your dad's back for the weekend, huh."

Patrick stared up at him, face red and sullen at the matter-of-fact tone. Joe tensed, knowing that a sore point would be addressed now, pinched open like a scab and Pete was good at pick-pick-picking until Patrick would burst in wrathful bellows or retreat in moody silence. Patrick nodded his head, once, his hat sprawled off beside his head. Pete looked down at him, still appraisingly and then leaned forward, talking in a low voice; but Joe and Andy heard him clearly.

"We're sticking around. Okay? We always do, don't you get it? We're not him, so we won't come and go like he does."

"Yeah, right," Patrick frowned and Andy spoke up beside Joe.

"It's true. We're not gonna do that to you. Right, Joe?" Andy turned raised eyebrows to him, and Joe smiled slightly. He was still a kid, but he knew who he liked and he liked Patrick. And Pete and Andy too, but they were older and wiser and strangely popular and _meant_ to be liked. There was a rule about that somewhere. But Patrick...Patrick, he liked on his own. Even if he was sometimes a real bastard, and yelled at people when he really wanted to ask them to get closer.

"Yeah. Yeah, Patrick," Joe agreed, awkwardly truthful as Pete rose up off Patrick, dragging him up. "We're sticking around."

*

_Andy at 19 years old.._

God.

That drummer that Patrick had was sorta fucking up the beat, and every last one of Andy's nerves were threatening to roll up out his body and attack him. He didn't know how Pete had managed to coerce him out of studying to attending a dance at Patrick and Joe's high school, but here he was listening to the lovely discord of a high school band. Pete was standing beside him, goggle-eyed as usual at Patrick's voice; his eyes gleamed like a coal-miner who had just dug up a diamond, and Andy's nerves were soothed a little.

A song was over and Patrick rushed down to the corner they were lurking in, flapping his hand carelessly at Andy as he opened his mouth.

"Yeah, I know, he's fucking up the beat. You should have practiced that one with us, and then we wouldn't have this problem," Patrick glared at him half-heartedly, and Pete slung an arm around his shoulder; Patrick inspected the arm nearest his nose, pushing up those glasses that Pete hated. "Pete. Can't you go a day without another new tattoo?"

"Aren't you going to dance with somebody?" Pete asked, looking around as if he was recruiting a partner for his friend. "That girl in the pink is looking over here."

"Because your jeans are too tight. You need to wear your size." Patrick looked at Andy as Pete sputtered in denial, and grinned at him. "You know the next song. Want to show them what real drumming is like?"

Andy laced his fingers together and flexed his arms out, stretching them in smooth motions.

"Let's go," he said.

No-one here knew who the hell Pete was, and how he managed to clamber onstage and grab the mic, but he was a natural showman, introducing Andy with circus-flair. Andy shook his head and started off hard; Patrick wanted real drumming, so...he'd blow these bitches away. Joe came in on a downbeat, throwing a toothsome grin over his shoulder at Andy (Pete swore Joe had a man-crush on him), and Andy could see Pete convincing the bass-player to give up the intrument. In another life, he could imagine them doing this permanently. On the road, and shit.

Patrick's voice cut through his musings, and he backed off a little to give him space to weave around the sounds of the other instruments, and all of a sudden, this was so _real_. This was how it should be, all four of them, with the crowd looking a little awed at the tiny boy with the massive voice, and the other two guitarists enjoying themselves way too much behind him, and he himself trying his best to destroy the drumkit, and it was so perfect, so perfect that his heart nearly stopped.

Great.

Now he was waxing poetic, like Pete.

*

_Pete at 25 years old_

_This is really not fair_ , Patrick was thinking for the four-millionth time, and Joe was thinking the exact same thing, because he opened his mouth and spoke.

"Millions of people, including me, smoke like an old car. And _you_ end up with the fucking black lungs. Just, what the hell?" Joe's face was full of unrealised dismay, and Pete smiled grimly at them.

"I'm a Wentz," Pete informed them hoarsely. "My life is steeped in irony." Their collective sense of humour was effectively banished at the sight of his gaunt face, and Pete grimaced at them. " _God._ Don't bury me in your memory too soon, please."

"You always talk like that," Andy pointed out gently from a chair close to the bed. Patrick had literally climbed under the thin sheet with him while Joe lounged on the carpet. "Why?"

Pete stared at him.

"How long have you known me, man? You know I love words. I like to make them twist and shout," he leered, and they groaned. He tried clearing his throat, but not too much, because that would set off the coughing, and the coughing would set off the deep dark pain in his chest and he was really too fucking young for this, no matter what he had always told people (live fast die young look pretty in the casket). "Well. Here it is. The Last Will and Testament of Peter Wentz, Esquire."

"Most excellent," Joe murmured, and this earned him a faint grin from Patrick. Pete shushed them.

"To my friend Patrick Stump. I bequeath to him my patience to get through the day without having a tantrum or a screaming match with someone."

"I haven't had a fight in... _years_ , Pete," Patrick put in, and Pete gave him a long knowing look. "Months, then....fuck, fine, it was weeks."

"To my friend Joseph Trohman, I leave my overall sexy nature, because with that lisp he will need it."

"For your information, some people find this lisp _sexy_."

"Yes, three of them, and they're all deaf," Pete said blithely, and smiled as they finally started to chuckle.

"To my brother-in-arms, Andrew Hurley, I give my gregarious personality, so that he may be laid even _more_."

"Impossible," Patrick whispered in shock. "Dude gets so much action, I think he's over his quota."

"I'm a no-limits kinda guy," Andy replied innocently and they laughed until Pete coughed and they all got sober again, looking at his slim frame nearly hidden under the sheets. Andy tucked a long brown strand of hair behind his ear, adjusted his glasses, and then suddenly gave a sunny smile. "We're sticking around, Pete. Okay?"

Pete smiled slowly, relaxing against Patrick's solid side.

"Okay."


End file.
